Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain

On their second full-length album (not counting a compilation of early singles and EPs), Pavement emerge from the noisy clang and clutter to reveal the once-hidden songcraft and passion that made their previous recordings so mysteriously fascinating. The mystery may have receded on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, but the fascination increases, for this album confirms what we only suspected before: Pavement are a great rock & roll band. The two Stockton, California, slackers who founded the band in 1989 have mastered the pop alchemy of transforming the collision of impatient youthful desires and a hostile world into aching, melodic vocals and driving, melodic guitar riffs. The band's cofounders use an element of suspense to illustrate just how fragile romantic optimism really is. When Steve Malkmus yearns for a human connection in his suburban community ("Silence Kid," "Range Life") or in the alternative-rock scene ("Cut Your Hair," "Fillmore Jive"), the elegant melodies let us know that the yearning is unironic, while the unstable guitars let us know the prospects are bleak. On the album's last song, they bid "good-night to the rock & roll era" even as they're giving it a new lease on life. --Geoffrey Himes